Logos 8 Note Suggestions
I have a couple of thoughts for what might be useful features in notes. If these are already available, please point me to where/how to do them.
First, it would be nice to be able to build a hierarchical structure of notebooks within notebooks much like the MS Windows file system. For example, a user might create a notebook titled "God" containing sub notebooks like "God's Attributes", "God Speaks", "God Relents", "God Listens', "God Working Through People", etc. This would provide a strong structure for notes.
It would also be nice to be able to place a note in more than one notebook. In relational database terms there is a many to many relationship between notes and notebooks in that a notebook may contain one or more notes and a note may exist in one or more notebooks. So, notes in the "God/God Working Through People" notebook might also be in a notebook "People Used by God."
It appears that there already exists a many to many relationship between a note and its source (defined by "anchors", in that Logos allows multiple anchors to be associated with a note. Therefore, a note may be associated with one or more associated item and an associated item can be associated with on or more notes.
Finally, it would be really nice to be able to automatically generate notes for Bible cross references and/or scripture references that exist in Logos books and tools. There could be a user defined filter that would limit this to a subset of resources. Once the notes were created the user could add their note content, flag the note to keep or drop and etc. One method cold be to generate a working screen of potential notes where the user could add notes to the items of their choosing. Pressing save would only generate notes for items with user input. The others would be discarded.
Enough for now!
Comments
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First, welcome to the forums!
First, it would be nice to be able to build a hierarchical structure of notebooks within notebooks much like the MS Windows file system. For example, a user might create a notebook titled "God" containing sub notebooks like "God's Attributes", "God Speaks", "God Relents", "God Listens', "God Working Through People", etc. This would provide a strong structure for notes.
This is pseudo available with a combination of notebooks and tags. Have a high-level notebook, then you can filter for tags within the specific notebook. This in effect gets what you are looking for.
It would also be nice to be able to place a note in more than one notebook. In relational database terms there is a many to many relationship between notes and notebooks in that a notebook may contain one or more notes and a note may exist in one or more notebooks. So, notes in the "God/God Working Through People" notebook might also be in a notebook "People Used by God."
Again, tags would serve you better here. It doesn't make sense to put things in multiple notebooks. Think of it this way. In a real notebook can you have the same note in multiple notebooks without making a copy?
Finally, it would be really nice to be able to automatically generate notes for Bible cross references and/or scripture references that exist in Logos books and tools. There could be a user defined filter that would limit this to a subset of resources. Once the notes were created the user could add their note content, flag the note to keep or drop and etc. One method cold be to generate a working screen of potential notes where the user could add notes to the items of their choosing. Pressing save would only generate notes for items with user input. The others would be discarded.
I'm having a hard time catching vision of what you are trying to do on this one. Could you flesh this out some more?
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Sorry for the time lag between responses, but I wanted to actuslly start using Notes before I proceeded. I have listened to the seminars and training on notes, highlighting, and workflows, and have subscribed to the MP Seminars Online.
I also spent my career as an Information Technology consultant specilizing in Database Design. Having said this,I am amazed at how well the Logos design/development team has created Logos software.
With all this in mind, I would still like to address the issues focusing only on my second point, allowing a note to reside in more than one notebook. I understand your comment; "It doesn't make sense to put things in multiple notebooks. Think of it this way. In a real notebook can you have the same note in multiple notebooks without making a copy?" I agree that in the real "physical" word this is not possible unless the note is physiclly duplicated in each notebook. My wife is a prime example of the drawback of paper copies. Bless her heart, she is a devout student of the Bible. Her problem is that all her notes a physically hand written and scattered all over the place. She can't get a new Bible because it is jammed full of stuff she doesn’t want to lose. Then there is the plethora of notes kept in different journals and notebooks. However, technology handles issues like this in ways the physical real world can’t!
The point of my career was to take real world problems and resolve them with technology. Your point is well taken about not wanting to create duplicate notes in order to have a copy in multiple note books, but technology resolves this issue.
Here is my real world problem. I am teaching a class on 1 Corinthians. Paul in his opening doesn’t address his letter to a physical Corinthian church location. That does not exist and is not his audience. He addresses the letter to the “church of God” that lives throughout Corinth. So, I want to make a note on this. I anchor the note to 1 Cor 1:2, and then do a search discovering the phrase is used five different places in 1 Cor as well as the books of Acts, 1 Timothy and Galatians. Logos allows me to anchor this note all eight Bible locations without my making a duplicate copy of the note. “Wonderful!’
What I want to do is “Anchor this note, not copies of it, to a 1 Corinthians, Acts, 1 Timothy, and Galatians notebook as well as a “Church” notebook. I have database knowledge of how and why this works. At this point, as I consider Notebooks and Tags, I see the as one and the same, although I haven’t worked with tags enough to carve that statement in “stone”. However, I would suggest that a person could go a long way to accomplish what I want by just using tags. For example, I could use tags as notebooks, tagging all the above with books of the Bible tags along with a church tag. So, and with my limited understanding of the total purpose of notebooks VS tags, I see them as redundant, with the exception that a note can’t reside in (more correctly, be linked/anchored to) more than one notebook.
This is a lot to chew on, so let me leave it hear for now.
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[My wife's] problem is that all her notes a physically hand written and scattered all over the place. She can't get a new Bible because it is jammed full of stuff she doesn’t want to lose.
That is exactly the situation that drove me to Logos years ago. Not only are my notes safe and available, even after a computer crash, but also I can share all my children and grandchildren.
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Hi Robert - thanks for the clear statement of where you have got to
What I want to do is “Anchor this note, not copies of it, to a 1 Corinthians, Acts, 1 Timothy, and Galatians notebook as well as a “Church” notebook
Why, specifically, do you want to have this note in multiple notebooks? Why, as you discuss later, is using tags not suitable for what you are trying to achieve?
Your comment about Notesbooks and Tags being "one and the same" in interesting. I don't know if you have seen the article on using notebooks that has a section "Reasons to use notebooks" that shows some things we can do with notebooks that we can't currently do in any other way including via the use of tags. This might be a current implementation difference or reflect design decisions that will keep these things separate - I don't know.
However, I would suggest that a person could go a long way to accomplish what I want by just using tags. For example, I could use tags as notebooks, tagging all the above with books of the Bible tags along with a church tag
Yes - and I'd be interested to know why this doesn't meet your requirements.
Graham
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With all this in mind, I would still like to address the issues focusing only on my second point, allowing a note to reside in more than one notebook. I understand your comment; "It doesn't make sense to put things in multiple notebooks. Think of it this way. In a real notebook can you have the same note in multiple notebooks without making a copy?" I agree that in the real "physical" word this is not possible unless the note is physiclly duplicated in each notebook. My wife is a prime example of the drawback of paper copies. Bless her heart, she is a devout student of the Bible. Her problem is that all her notes a physically hand written and scattered all over the place. She can't get a new Bible because it is jammed full of stuff she doesn’t want to lose. Then there is the plethora of notes kept in different journals and notebooks. However, technology handles issues like this in ways the physical real world can’t!
The point of my career was to take real world problems and resolve them with technology. Your point is well taken about not wanting to create duplicate notes in order to have a copy in multiple note books, but technology resolves this issue.
Just for reference, even the most popular note apps (like Evernote) don't allow you to have the same note in multiple notebooks. I agree tags are the way to go for this.
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#1 Suggestion: Make the N key a shortcut to create a new note. I don't know why there is no shortcut for note creation. You can program number keys to highlight colors and I am always frustrated that it takes a right click to get to take a quick note.
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#1 Suggestion: Make the N key a shortcut to create a new note. I don't know why there is no shortcut for note creation. You can program number keys to highlight colors and I am always frustrated that it takes a right click to get to take a quick note.
Already done and shipping with 8.4 on April 15. If you've not already assigned the n key, we'll use it to create a new note from a resource. One qualification is that it currently works only if you have text selected, so you can't create a reference-anchored note (or just launch the Notes panel from anywhere in the app). But you can easily delete the text range anchor and add a reference anchor.
This already works on the web app.
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Awesome. That will be so useful.
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Suggestion. In Logos 7 I formed a Topic Note folder to gather information on various topics. These notes are not anchored to a text. As I entered a new note in Logos 7 it put it in alphabetical order in the list according to the first words in the note (my Topic title). That is not the case in Logos 8. Without a Bible reference anchor, they are just added to the bottom of the list. Please put an alphabetical sort feature so that the notes can be sorted accordingly. Thank you.
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